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August 21, 2008
Gio's Café and Deli in Bridgeport holds a soft spot in our heart. Years after we moved to the neighborhood, Giovanni Liuzzo, Ignacio Bautista and their staff still make the best Italian food in Bridgeport. Gio's was the subject of our very first post here on Chicagoist. Since then we've introduced numerous friends to the place and its charms. These days it's quite hard to get a seat, so we order takeout. Breaking from tradition...
Continue Reading "One Great Sandwich: Gio's Panino di Avolo"
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add to del.icio.usMercat a la Planxa's Jose Garces flays Bobby Flay on Iron Chef [Philly City Paper] Applebee's "owns riblets." Wonderful; another reason not to go. [NYT] Joanna MIller delves into a vegetarian nicoise salad. [My Vegetable Blog] A teaser for Paul Kahan's upcoming the Publican. [Drive-Thru] Food Chain on Alliance Bakery Break-In [Food Chain] TOC reveals the secret of Carnivale's Mojitos. [TOC] Chris Borelli of the Tribune braves the opening of the Aurora Sonic [Tribune] TOC's...
Continue Reading "Quick Bites"August 20, 2008
We’re always looking for interesting chicken recipes, but we find most are either incredibly bland or mouth-numbingly dry. We prefer whole roast or rotisserie chickens, but often boneless skinless chicken breasts are the only convenient option on a weekday night. This is an easy dish with a nice Thai twist and you can finish it in less than thirty minutes. It’s also got a nice spicy, citrus flavor for a summer dinner out on the...
Continue Reading "Simple Cooking – Coconut/Lime Chicken"
We're on record stating Unibroue to be the best brewery in North America, for their amazing recreations of Belgian-style ales. There are a few other breweries of note that pray to the Belgian shrine. One of them is Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY. Oh, God, oh, God the poetic we could wax about their Hennepin, Three Philosophers or Rare Vos brews! Then we went through previous posts and realized that we've never featured an...
Continue Reading "Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Brewery Ommegang Abbey Ale"The Tribune (via wire sources) reports today that MillerCoors is bringing back the "Tastes Great, Less Filling" tagline to its Miller Lite ads. Not exactly certain if this item is newsworthy, or even correct. The article says that the tagline hasn't been used since 1991, but in Miller's horndog "catfight" commercial it was used as the impetus for two pneumatic bimbos to wrestle in water and cement. Can't say that Miller doesn't know its...
Continue Reading "MillerCoors Brings Back Classic Advertising Slogan to Sell Classic Bad Beer"Advertisement: Chicagoist Continues Below!
August 20, 2008
We recently had friends in town and decided to take advantage of Marche's fixed price menu on Monday and Wednesday nights ($28.95 for a three course meal). Photos taken by our much more talented photography friend, Chris Lynch, AKA "LynchSeattle". Marche is located at 833 W Randolph....
Continue Reading "Chicagoist Food Pr0n: Marche"August 19, 2008
Just in case you ever wanted to sleep again, allow us to prevent that with this one phrase: "passed a 9-foot tapeworm." Ah! See you in my nightmares, tapeworm! Anthony Franz is suing Shaw's Crab House, and its parent company Lettuce Entertain You, because he says that's where he contracted said tapelstiltskin, he claims from undercooked fish. A rep for Lettuce says the restaurant isn't the source. Most of the time, having a tapeworm won't...
Continue Reading "Man Says He Contracted 9-Foot Tapeworm at Shaw's"
The awesome holidays are coming one after another this August. Today is the 100th anniversary of the Root Beer Float, one of our favorite summer treats. Originally called a “black cow” (or a “brown cow, depending on who you believe), it was created by Frank Wisner in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Try out this Root Beer Float inspired cocktail, perfect for tonight’s dessert. Root Beer Float Practically all the root beer float cocktail recipes we could...
Continue Reading "Properly Sauced – Root Beer Float"August 18, 2008
While waiting for the Procession of St. Rocco to pass yesterday, we began to feel pangs of hunger. Rather than pray to the Patron Saint of Pestilence, we asked for a menu at Bertucci's Corner. The corner itself is known as "Bertucci's Corner;" the family has been a longtime presence in Chinatown and many members of the family are also members of the Order of St. Rocco. This place is one of the best known...
Continue Reading "South Side Eats: Bertucci's Corner"August 15, 2008
Tomorrow is National Rum Day. Normally we make fun of silly, profit-driven holidays designed by PR flacks, but in this case we’re totally on board. It may have something to do with the fact that we love drinking rum cocktails on mild summer days like this one. Here are a couple of drinks to try out on your friends this weekend! Cuba Libre The Cuba Libre is our favorite, simple rum-based cocktail. Invented during the...
Continue Reading "Properly Sauced: A Holiday We Can All Agree On!"
Don't call Phở "foe", foo'. It's pronounced "fuh" and this delicious noodle dish captures some of the best flavors in Vietnamese food. Phở is clear beef broth with white rice noodles. That's just the beginning. Menus will offer it with sliced steak, tripe, flank, tendon, meatballs...the list goes on and on. Choose your meats and the steaming bowl comes to your table, sliced onions floating on top. Check out more pictures here. The broth...oh,...
Continue Reading "Qu'est-ce Que C'est? De-Mystifying Chicago Restaurant Menus: Pho"
The dirty side of gentrification finally raises its head in East Pilsen. Residents and business owners in the neighborhood (aka "The Podmajersky area") are incensed that the owners of longtime polish sausage stand mainstay Express Grill are building a second location at 18th and Halsted. Business owners are touting the double parking and other traffic congestion, noise, overflowing dumpsters, drunkenness of its customers in the wee small hours and alleged illicit and criminal behavior going...
Continue Reading "East Pilsen to Express Grill: No Polish, No Onions"
Welcome to the Friday Buffet. Let's see what interesting food events are coming up for your enjoyment! Tonight: Enjoy a cocktail in the lounge at Ai Sushi and listen to Keeley Singer (next Friday: Roberta Miles). Ai is also celebrating the 46th anniversary of Spider-Man by inviting guests to enjoy a Spider Maki Roll and Green Goblin Martini combo for $10. 358 W. Ontario. Saturday: Bogart's Bar & Grill and Muvico-Rosemont 18 Theaters (located...
Continue Reading "The Friday Buffet"
How many of you knew there was a Chicago Culinary Museum and Chefs Hall of Fame? You're not alone, as right now it's mostly virtual, although they have had exhibits. Anyhoo, on August 27 Rick Bayless takes his place along Charlie Trotter and Heaven on Seven's Jimmy Bannos in the Chefs Hall of Fame during a four-hour ceremony and silent auction at the Palmer House Hilton. Bayless is a certainly a deserving nominee. In addition...
Continue Reading "Bayless Smells the Poblano All the Way to Chef's Hall of Fame"August 14, 2008
The tough economic climate in which we're currently mired is hitting everyone. CBS2 reports that rising unemployment and higher costs for food and gas is taxing food pantries throughout the area as demand begins outstripping supply. As of May 2008, food costs are 4.4 percent higher than they were at that point last year. The Greater Chicago Food Depository reports that for a twelve-month period ending in June they've had 3.6 million individual visits to...
Continue Reading "Demand Up, Donations Down at Local Food Pantries"Advertisement: Chicagoist Continues Below!
August 14, 2008
Until this morning, we hadn’t been back to the Daley Plaza Farmer’s Market since our last round-up in late June. The full range of summer produce is out now, and the variety and quality was astounding. A lot of the early-summer favorites are still there, but on this visit we focused on things we hadn’t seen before. On our way in, we noticed that Epicurious.com had a booth. We’d never seen this before, and stopped...
Continue Reading "Farmers Market Roundup – The Bounty of Summer"
Big Brother is watching you. So, apparently, was Julia Child. The CIA released over 35,000 declassified documents this morning shining a light on the operations of the World War II-era precursor to the CIA, the OSS. Other notable spies included Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Miles Copeland, Jr., the father of Police drummer Stewart Copeland. [AP, via Yahoo] Hot on the heels of the Bennigan's bankruptcy comes news that...
Continue Reading "Quick Bites"At the corner of 26th and Wallace in the wunnerful Bridgeport area is a pizza parlor called Punky's. We've mentioned Punky's before, mainly because we like their rhyming motto, "If your last pizza was funky, call Punky." Now, Vince "Punky" Scarlata and his staff make a good pizza, but we're even bigger fans of their sandwiches. Punky's makes a good breaded steak, chicken parmigiana sandwich (listed as "breaded chicken" on the menu), pepper and egg,...
Continue Reading "One Great Sandwich: Punky's Chicken Focaccia"August 13, 2008
With apologies to Susan Sarandon in "Bull Durham," "This is the damnedest year. The Cubs and Sox are both in first place and Bell's is back in Chicago." Yes, it is and all is right with the world for now. Except that the Bell's product won't be rolling out fully until we can finish the Kalamazoo brands. Both Larry Bell and Bell's local sales manager Jim O'Connor told us that the Kalamazoo line will...
Continue Reading "Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Kalamazoo Hop Soulution"
The Tribune's Stew blog reports that Green City Market founder Abby Mandel passed away this morning. After 11 years of running the annual Best of the Midwest Market at Navy Pier, Ms. Mandel founded Green City Market in 1999 as a way to bring locally farmed foods to people and raise awareness of sustainable food practices. Her work at Green City Market made Ms. Mandel one of the leaders of the local farm-to-table movement. Ms....
Continue Reading "Green City Market Founder Passes"We're never bored with pairing beer with food. One reason for that is we seem to never exhaust the possibilities of finding surprising and unexpected pairings. This, and the $49 cost, was what attracted us to last night's beer dinner at Brasserie JO featuring selections from Van Steenberge brewery in Belgium. The saying goes, "In order to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs." Not all of the pairs worked last night....
Continue Reading "Review: Brasserie JO/Van Steenberge Beer Dinner"August 12, 2008
This summer may have been pleasant, but there are still fruit flies out there. Fruit fly infestations, among other violations, led to the closings of Flat Top Grill's Old Town location (319 W. North Ave.) and Gum Fung Restaurant in Marquette Park (6835 S. Pulaski). Both restaurants also had food stored at unsafe temperatures; inspectors found 20 pounds of bok choy and other vegetables found in open containers on the floor at Gum Fung....
Continue Reading "Today in Health Department Restaurant Closures"
The Barry Callebaut Chocolate Academy is set to open next month in the Montgomery Ward building (600 W. Chicago Ave.), its first academy in the United States. Today Callebaut announced that award-winning pastry chef and instructor Jerome Landrieu will head the Academy. Landrieu has a resume that includes two first-place awards at the 2006 Chocolat by Pascal Caffet competition, top honors the Salon du Chocolat in Paris and a semifinal nod at the 2007 Meilleur...
Continue Reading "Barry Callebaut's Chicago Chocolate Academy Names Head"
Metromix has their opening date as yesterday or today. Helen Rosner at the always entertaining MenuPages Chicago has been waiting with bated breath for the doors to open, as well. We placed a call over to iCream in Wicker Park (1537 N. Milwaukee, 773-342-2834) to see when they would, indeed, open for business and were told "Thursday or Friday." After reading Rosner's description of the place we may join her in breaking down the doors...
Continue Reading "Ice Cream Parlor with Gross, Suggestive Name, Cool Gimmick To Open In Wicker Park This Week"